Author's Note: I have started another Doctor Who fic! I'll probably wait to post it after this, I like having long-term goals. But you know...just so you know. In about a year you'll have another story to read, lol.

Also, I just want to say thank you again to everyone who is reading, but especially to those who review. Life has not been kind lately, and they give me something to smile about. Thanks so, so much.

This is my favorite chapter. Not my favorite 'episode', but my favorite individual chapter. I'm not sure why, there are definitely more significant chapters. But this is the one! Enjoy!

Emerald Green

Chapter Seventeen

Hello, Good Morning

Molly was holding – something. She wasn't sure what. It was a bright yellow, thick cord with a metal thingy on the end, anyway. The other end was held by the Doctor, and being plugged into one hole, then removed and plugged into another. She was concerned this was because the Doctor didn't know where it went and that he'd taken something apart in the TARDIS that he didn't know how to put together again, but the last time she'd commented on that he'd gone on a ten-minute rant about…something technological, she wasn't sure what that had been, either; she'd disassociated as a form of self-preservation. But she was sure he'd done it just to irritate her into not questioning him again, and so far, it had worked.

So, she stood silently and held the cord and watched the Doctor do whatever it was he was doing, Amy's glasses balancing on his nose, dressed in shirt and suspenders and a purple bowtie with tiny stitched swirls in black. If she'd known she'd be helping repair the TARDIS, she would have worn something other than a dark blue mini dress. But the fabric of her shirt and pants had kept rubbing against the burns painfully. The Doctor seemed to have gotten away with only singed clothes; he blamed the burns she had on her "delicate" human skin. She'd collected a few of them, between the fire around the crater caused by the Mechanas, the Daleks, and the wildfire. Maybe they would scar, despite the seemingly magic burn cream the Doctor had provided that had gotten her past the worst of the healing process. At least she'd have a memento when she got home again. If she ever got home again, which was seeming unlikely as this moment of watching him theoretically repairing the TARDIS seemed to stretch on forever and ever. Place the cord, remove the cord, place the cord, remove the cord.

The memory of the ten-minute rant was fading fast in her mind, and her natural state of filter-less commentary was winning the fight until finally, "You have no idea what you're doing and it's painful to watch. There's got to be an owner's manual somewhere."

The Doctor looked at her as though she'd just insulted his dog. "I know what I'm doing! I've had the TARDIS since before your great-grandparents were born. Before your great-great-grandparents. Before your great-great-great-great-"

"Yeah, my grandparents, they're great," she said dismissively. "You've been plugging that cord in and out for what has to be about twenty-eight years now. I'm going gray as we speak."

"You were already going gray," the Doctor remarked, turning back to his work.

Molly's jaw dropped. "No, I am not! You take that back!"

"Little silver hairs round your temples."

Molly reached up and pulled hair out from behind her ear and examined the strands closely. There was one, single, tiny sparkle of silver. That shimmer temporarily chased all thought of anything but oh no oh no oh no I'm old away, but then reality came crashing back when she decided to be angry about it instead: specifically, at the person who had made her notice it.

She took a few steps forward and kicked the bottom of his foot.

He didn't even look away. "I'm doing some very delicate work here, if you don't mind!"

She kicked him again. "I hate you!"

"No, you don't, you're obsessed with my show."

Molly frowned at his knowledge of that, though she'd known she hadn't exactly been subtle about it. "I'm not anymore. It's the worst show. The main character is a jerk."

"I just pointed out the obvious."

Fury filled her. "What do you mean, 'obvious'? There's one hair, it's barely noticeable!"

"I noticed."

Molly's fury turned towards her brain when it failed to come up with a scathing comeback. After a moment she took a breath and calmed down, and in another moment, she found the comment. "So, you pay that close attention to my temples?"

The Doctor stopped moving for a moment, though his eyes were still locked on…whatever the cord was. She waited for him to respond and began formulating another comeback, but after a moment he seemed to decide to pretend she hadn't spoken, and went back to work.

"Fine, be that way. You can find someone else to hold things while you fail to fix the TARDIS," she said, and dropped her end of the…thing.

The Doctor immediately shot up to a straight sitting position and stared at the dropped cord in horror. A moment later he shouted, "Molly! That is a piece of a machine that travels through space and time and universes, a-" and Molly blacked out again until he finished with, "You could have blown up the galaxy, or wiped out the 80s!"

Molly glanced around the TARDIS. "But I didn't, did I?"

"No, but that's not the point."

Molly shrugged. "You should know better than to hand me important things." Her eyes narrowed. "You do know better than to hand me important things. You've made me stand here just to try to impress me with how clever your repair skills are, haven't you? While I hold something completely useless?"

The Doctor cleared his throat. "Of course not, I-"

"And then you realized you didn't know what you were doing with it, so you've been pretending this was all part of the plan the last twenty minutes while you try to figure out where this thing plugs in."

She watched as he worked his jaw up and down before responding. "Molly, the TARDIS is a very powerful, very fragile piece of machinery. In fact, she isn't really even machinery at all, she's organic. She was grown. Every little piece of wiring can have connections to every little piece of time and space. And she's old. It takes a very careful hand and very clever mind to keep her running properly."

Molly raised her eyebrows, widened her eyes and nodded, feigning being impressed. Then, "You didn't actually respond to what I said, you know."

He stared back for a moment, then turned back to his work. He reached into what seemed some kind of socket, and then shouted as she heard an electric buzzing sound that made her flinch. "OUCH!" He pulled his hand back and shook it.

"And now you've electrocuted yourself."

The Doctor scowled up at her. "I'm fine, thanks."

Molly shrugged. "I figured, since you were still moving."

"Can you just run up and get my sonic, please?"

Molly sighed and rolled her eyes, but turned and headed up the stairs anyway. She glanced to where the wires were still hanging out of the central console and hoped it really was nothing but the HADs. He'd left the sonic resting on the central console after scanning it and claiming there was no serious damage. But his eyes had shifted a little as he'd said it.

She picked the sonic screwdriver up, felt the weight of it in her hand, all the little lines of metal that came together and formed it, saw the green light at the top. She knew it worked psychically, somehow, but she wondered exactly how. It really was a wonder; a catch-all tool that worked psychically and sonically and could do anything (except wood, of course, unless the Doctor had actually fixed it this time). Nothing like this could possibly exist in her universe. Nothing like the TARDIS. Nothing like the Doctor.

It happened still, now and then. A sudden dizziness. A shift of visual perspective, as though light gathered itself around the Doctor. A moment of clarity, she figured, where she remembered that this was really the Doctor, from her comfort show, not just someone who looked like him and acted like him. Except now it was less about being star-struck, and more like being in awe. The moments of the show were all real here; all the times he'd saved the universe were real. The Reality Bomb, Big Bang Two. He'd really defeated an entire alien military base without anyone dying – up until the end. Turned humanity against their enslavers without them ever knowing. He'd ended more wars than she could count, prevented what was probably an infinite amount. She could sometimes hear the whole speech from Rings of Ahkaten: I saw the birth of the universe, and I watched as time ran out, moment by moment, until nothing remained – no time, no space, just me.

He was the only truly infinite thing. The closest thing to a god she believed in. A legend, not just in the colloquial way, but an actual, real legend, on hundreds of worlds. Even deleting himself from every database in the universe couldn't have erased that, even if they didn't have the name anymore. There were still stories, still verbal legends.

Of course, she would rather be tarred and feathered than to ever let the Doctor know even a miniscule speck of this. When those moments came, she'd blink or shake her head and figure out something teasing to say to shrink him back down to a size she could comprehend. There was always plenty of material. Still, sometimes…

"Are you coming back?" she heard the Doctor say from behind her. She turned around quickly, still holding the sonic out the way she had been the last few minutes or so as she'd gotten lost in thought.

She saw the light gathered around him. There he was. The literal man, the literal myth, the literal legend. "You have some kind of oil or grease on your chin. Looks like a soul patch." There was always material.

He wiped at his chin with his fingers and walked up and leaned into the monitor to check that it was clear, and then took the sonic as she held it out to him. "Did you get lost?"

"I was just looking at the TARDIS." She got away with this lie, because it was partially true. It'd been in her peripheral. "If you really want to show off, you should show me how you fly her. You know, teach me something I haven't seen yet."

She was baiting his ego in an attempt to get a TARDIS flying lesson, and she was sure he knew it, too. She was also sure it would work.

"Fine, yes, we can have a little flying lesson when I'm done repairing her," he said with some impatience, but she saw a smile on his lips when she took a moment to hop excitedly and clap in victory. "It would go a lot faster if my assistant would stop dropping things and disappearing."

"It would go a lot faster if you knew what you were doing."

He turned to her with narrowed eyes and pointed at her with the sonic so close it almost touched the tip of her nose. "Why do I put up with you?"

"You're obsessed with my show," she replied brightly. He tapped her nose with the sonic in retribution but was still smiling when he tucked the sonic into his pocket.

"How about a break?" he asked. "Bit of a breather?"

Molly stretched her arms over her head and yawned dramatically. "Yeah, it's been exhausting standing there holding a cord and watching you do absolutely nothing with it."

A pause. "Well, I suppose I could explain to you exactly what the cord does and where it goes and its purpose with the manipulation of certain wormholes, and how those specific wormholes work, and how that connects to the way the TARDIS moves through the matrix of time and space, and-"

She held her hands up in a gesture of surrender. "Mercy, mercy," she replied. "I surrender."

The Doctor grinned, and moved to lean against the railing. "I'll have her up and going again in no time. We'll be off on our next trip soon."

Molly leaned her hip against the console. "What do you want to do in the meantime?"

He shrugged. "Up to you! Do you want to go watch something in the cinema room, check out the library, go for a swim?"

Molly ran through the options in her head. The problem was, when she got home she could still watch a movie, look through a library, or go swimming. She wanted to take advantage of being here while she still could. What was something she'd wanted to do with the Doctor while she watched the show that didn't involve moving the TARDIS?

She remembered something she'd been curious about for a long time. She walked over to him, and pulled herself up to sit on the railing. "Teach me some Gallifreyan. Like, 'hello', or something."

The Doctor slowly took a few steps forward as he turned to face her, and stared at her with wide, almost suspicious eyes for so long she wondered if she'd said some kind of secret code that revealed her to be a villain, before he said, "Why?"

She was looking back at him with suspicion, now. "Well, I'm curious. And they never really speak it on the show, or maybe they did in one episode in the Classic Who, I don't know, I never got much access to it, but it'd be nice to hear it. I mean, if the TARDIS doesn't just translate it; does it translate Gallifreyan? I think the show said it didn't. Also, I think we could…" she let her rambling drift off as she finally noticed his almost bewildered expression. And then it clicked, and she could feel the blood rushing to her cheeks. "Oh! Unless it's too…personal. Like the last time you heard it was…" The last time he'd been on Gallifrey, before he believed he'd blown up everyone else who spoke the language. "…and it'd make you sad. You know, nevermind, forget I said anything. How about we go swimming?" How insensitive could she possibly be? She'd made social gaffes before, but this was by far the worst. This one was going to haunt her.

But the Doctor started shaking his head. "No, it's not that. It's okay, it's fine. It's just…no one has ever asked me that before. This is…new." He bit his bottom lip for a moment, and she watched his expression go from confused, to some mild excitement at the concept of doing something new – he must have been running out of those by now – and then to a sort of studious professor. "Gallifreyan doesn't translate. It's expected that the main language spoken on the TARDIS would be Gallifreyan. But it's complicated, very complicated, for a human to pronounce. Most of it impossible."

Molly folded her hands in her lap while she considered this. "Anything I might be able to say at all? I don't care if it's something a child just learning to speak would say. I don't mind sounding silly."

The Doctor turned and paced away, his hands behind his back. He seemed to be brainstorming, looking for any word or phrase a human might have a hope to pronounce. After a moment, he turned back to her. "We could try 'good morning'. It's much longer in Gallifreyan than in English, but the words are easier for a human to pronounce."

"Okay," said Molly smiling. The excitement of hearing the language of the Time Lords spoken for the first time filled her heart. "Hit me."

The Doctor was smiling as he said – something. It took quite a few seconds longer than she'd expected, and for a moment, she wondered if he was joking with her. But it was beautiful, so beautiful. It seemed less a spoken phrase than a short, sweet song. It wouldn't have been possible to write it down with any letters in any alphabet she knew of, not without added musical notation, at least. It didn't sound anything like 'good morning', but it felt like it, almost like a reverse lullaby, like a hymn to a rising sun. No wonder no one knew his name – no one could hope to comprehend it, let alone pronounce it.

Molly almost lost her balance on the railing, and reached out to either side of herself to grip it tight. It took longer than she would have liked to force her mind to return to her own language. "Say it again," she said, not even fully intending to. The Doctor repeated what seemed to be a short song.

What she wanted to say was that it was glorious, and truly incredible, and the most awesome (with the original intent of the word, awesome) thing she had ever heard. What she actually saidwas, "Oh, I am going to butcher the ever-loving hell out of this."

The Doctor laughed. "It'll take some practice. I'll break it down for you."

After around twenty minutes of sitting on the railing and butchering the words, Molly now sat on the floor beside the main console butchering the words. The Doctor was to her right listening, while to her left was a pile of tools the Doctor had handed her so that she could hand the right one to him while he worked on the HADs wiring. Most of them looked more like musical instruments to her, but even with human tools she couldn't say which was a Philips screwdriver and which was a circlehead. Trianglehead? Flathead? Was it a Philips hammer?

"The Hyzurin," said the Doctor, gesturing towards the pile between her attempts at his language. "It's the one with the side that looks like a saxophone."

She dug through the pile and tried pitching her voice differently for the next attempt. As she handed him the Hyzur-whatsit, he said, "Oh, that one was close!"

As he went back to work, she leaned over to try to look him in the eye. "How do your babies learn to talk?! I've been sitting here repeatedly trying to say 'good morning' like an idiot for like, thirty minutes!"

"We might look a lot alike, but humans and Gallifreyans aren't the same. It's simpler for us. Besides, it's our native language, so it's easier," he said as he threaded a wire through the side of what seemed to be a tiny saxophone. "I don't know if a human has ever made an honest attempt at it. You're getting better." Molly sighed and made another attempt, and he froze for a moment and turned toward her with a hesitant expression. "Er, maybe don't say it like that."

"Why? What did I do wrong this time?"

"You just asked me if I wanted to get in bed with you, with, uh…certain implications." Molly redirected her embarrassment into anger, as she usually did, and hit him on the shoulder. "Hey! I'm not the one who said it!"

Molly threw her hands up in the air. "I give up! You're right, humans can't handle it."

The Doctor patted her on the knee. "You were doing really well, though. Come on. One more try. Open the back of your throat a little more." She frowned, but then took a deep breath and tried again. His eyes widened with excitement, and he grinned. "There you go! You got it! Good morning!"

Her eyes widened. "Are you serious? I actually did it right?"

"Yeah!"

"Are you lying?"

"Yep," he said, and turned back to his work. "But you shouldn't give up. You're doing better than any human has ever done trying to speak Gallifreyan."

"You said I'm probably the only one."

"And therefore, the best!" He grinned, then pointed to the tool pile again. "Oxylvator. It has a few tubes at the end."

Molly reached over and dug around until she found it and handed it over. She watched him work again for a little while. It felt like watching her dad fix her car, if that had ever been a possibility in her life. It was like she was pretending to try to learn how to fix it herself, though she had no hope of retaining any of this.

It was nice, though. Watching him work. The TARDIS really was the closest he had to a constant, dependable family, and it showed. He was constantly at work keeping her running the best she could. Not just big repairs like this, but consistent smaller ones. It seemed to be as much a passion of his as going to different worlds. He really loved her. And it turned out, she was his only companion for a hundred years.

"Hey," she said, lowering the pitch of her voice to prepare him for a shift in the tone of their conversation. "What are you going to do after I go back home?"

"What do you mean?" he asked, finished now with threading the wires through the tubes, which now glowed a faint gold. "I'll do what I've always done. Travel."

"I mean…" she began, and paused, frustrated. She crossed possible lines with him left and right, and with anyone else she wouldn't mind. But she feared making him angry more than anyone else. He wasn't 'anyone else'. But this wasn't something she could pretend she didn't care about, either. "I hate to sound like a broken record, but you really shouldn't be traveling alone. I've seen what happens when you do, and you told me yourself that you weren't fine."

The Doctor sighed and set the – thing – down, and turned towards her. "And what do you suggest I do? Take out a classified ad?"

"No, but there must be something. At least on the show, you always end up finding someone."

"It isn't that easy in reality," he replied. His voice was growing sharper. "I can't just stand around and hope to run into someone who can do this like you can, like the others could."

She tried to think of some way he could find someone after she left, but nothing was coming to her. "You were alone for a hundred years. You really never met anyone with potential?"

He opened his mouth to answer, then closed it and turned back to his work. He started to peel the tubes off the wires, now the golden light was gone. "I'm old, Molly. Very old. I don't need a babysitter." He set the wires down again, and looked up at the orange TARDIS light. She wished she could read his mind.

Instead, she reached over and straightened his crooked tie, and he looked back to give her an appreciative smile. She gave a small smile back, trying to keep the pity from her eyes. But in his, she could see some of the secret pain he carried. How ancient he was. Some kind of dark sadness.

"What happened?" she finally asked. "During the hundred years. You said you weren't okay. Something must have happened."

"I was traveling. A good number of things happened." The Doctor tried to joke, but his gaze grew distant. She thought - she knew - he wasn't going to give her a real answer. She knew it even as she'd asked it. But she wanted to give him the chance to talk about it.

He surprised her. "I told you, when you first arrived, that the last adventure I had was saving the Ood from some Sontarans. It was…a bit more complicated than that." He turned and started to put the wires back where they belonged, she assumed because he couldn't look her in the eye. "The Sontarans wanted an energy that was buried deep in the Ood home world; it's part of what makes them psychic. The Sontarans needed it to power their ships and return to their own home." His voice was growing quieter with every word. "There was a moment - just a moment - where I could have spared the Sontarans. I could have given them what they needed to get home and ended their hostilities with the Ood, without the Ood losing an essential part of their home world. But they'd taken some Ood hostage, and then killed them. So instead, I destroyed their fleet. I killed every last one of them. No mercy. I chose justice instead. No…I chose vengeance." He sighed as he put the metal hatch back in place. "That's only part of it. I went dark, Molly. Very dark. And cold. I threatened planets, toppled kings, trapped men in a time loop. It was always for the greater good, I told myself. But I knew I was lying. I shouldn't even call myself the Doctor anymore." A ghost of a sarcastic smile. "I should call myself the Valeyard."

She had never seen the classic episode, but she'd heard about it. A future version or regeneration of the Doctor, meant to be between his 12th and final, at least in the classic era. An amalgamation of all the darkest parts of the Doctor. It made sense, that he would feel like the Valeyard now. Maybe it was her arrival that prevented it. Maybe that was why she was here.

He looked at her, and in his eyes, she saw her own fear. The fear that the way he thought of her would change if he knew her secret. He was waiting for her to pass judgement. She only knew a little of what he'd done, but she could imagine. She'd seen enough of his darker moments on the show to know what he was capable of becoming.

But how could she pass judgement on him? She hadn't been there. She didn't know what he knew. And could it possibly undo all the good he'd ever done? And how could she judge him, knowing what she'd done herself?

He had been alone too long, that was really what the problem was. There'd been no one to restrain him, to bring him back to himself. That was why he'd initially been so cold towards her, when she'd first arrived. And that was why he'd been so ready to travel with her. Not because he was a 'fan'. Because he needed someone with him, and then there she was, like magic. Maybe it'd been his wish that helped bring her here, too.

Molly reached over and grabbed one of his hands in each of hers. "See? You need someone. I'll help, if I can." She couldn't grant him forgiveness for the things he'd done; those things had nothing to do with her. But at least she could offer him support. "We'll figure something out together. In the meantime, I'll call you out if you're ever nearing a line."

He made a sound as though he'd considered chuckling. "Don't I know it," he said. But his smile was genuine. "I suppose you'd know better than most what it looks like, when I need someone to hold me back." He gave her hands a little squeeze.

She gave them a little squeeze back, and then folded her hands back into her lap. "I guess. Probably. Same as you would about me, anyway."

The Doctor began gathering up the bits of wire that seemed too damaged to be put back. "I don't think you ever resorted to violence in the show. Well…" he paused. "Maybe once or twice. When it was well deserved."

Molly tried to think of what he was referring to. "Oh. You mean that guy at the bar I punched for grabbing and shaking that woman because he was mad she was a lesbian?"

"Did you really break your hand?"

Molly shrugged. "I was a ballerina. I didn't exactly learn how to throw a punch right." She paused. "Or to think things through, clearly, if they showed his buddy shoving my face into the bar after. And that police officer arresting me when I mouthed off to him. And flipped him off. …I should have just flagged down a bouncer."

The Doctor stood and slipped the wires in his pocket. "Still, it's a part of why I like your show. It's a rare dramatic mystery show that shows a woman who is…usually…more inclined towards pacifism." He offered a hand to help her up, which she gladly accepted.

She'd never really considered herself a pacifist, but she supposed he was right. She couldn't think of a drama or mystery show that didn't contain violence, and she'd never really needed to use it. "Well, there aren't that many scifi shows that have a main character who uses a screwdriver to solve problems rather than a weapon," she replied. "I think that's partly why I started watching. I wasn't really up for heavy violence at the time I was introduced to it. I needed to see someone who didn't immediately turn to violence to change a situation."

The Doctor nodded understandingly. "Whenever I was frustrated when things that I tried to solve peacefully became violent, it was nice to see a show where the main character used her wits and negotiation skills rather than violence as the solution."

Molly laughed. "Yeah, I guess I used to do that a lot. I feel like I haven't helped much since I got here, at least, I haven't really used any negotiation skills."

"You don't think so?" he asked, and when she shook her head, he said, "The Vannique?"

She considered. "Okay, maybe a bit there. But it wasn't like it was complicated."

"The Mechanas?"

Shrugging, Molly replied, "That was more a desperate apology than a negotiation."

"Do you really think just anyone would have been willing to get on their knees to something that fully capable of killing them, and ask for peace?" The Doctor walked around her and started towards the stairs, down to where they still had repairs to do. "Not to mention how quickly you organized people to start taking care of rescue operations."

"I said, like, five things," she replied.

He stopped on the stairs and turned back to look at her. "You negotiated with two alien races, and helped humans on another planet to organize to save as many of them as possible. Since you couldn't negotiate with the Daleks and Vashta Nerada, you instead instigated a fight between them to help us get out safely, and without having to kill them all one by one. You can't negotiate with a wildfire, but you trusted the White Stag that got us out of the fire. You've done quite a bit more to help everywhere we've been than you think."

Molly stopped on the top step and looked down at him. "Okay. You have a point. I'm pretty great." She always swung so wildly between overconfident and self-doubting that she was sure it gave him whiplash as much as it gave her. Her therapist would have said she was covering her insecurity, but she hadn't had a therapist in years, save for the one she was forced to see for the trauma of being shot, so Molly felt free to ignore examining that possibility.

The Doctor smiled and turned, taking a few more steps down the stairs and glancing to the left – and then stopping dead. "Oh, hello there," he said, his voice polite, but uncertain. "You're not supposed to be here."

He continued down the stairs and began walking towards something, and Molly followed quickly so she could see what it was he was speaking to. It was immediately obvious; a crack hanging in the air near where they'd been working together earlier. A familiar crack, with a specific shape, leaking golden light.

She started to follow him all the way down, but the Doctor held out a warning hand. "Stay there. Don't move." She watched his face as he took the screwdriver out of his pocket. He was drained of color, almost to a sickly grey. His lips were trembling. His hands shook ever so slightly as he held the screwdriver out, and began scanning the crack. His eyes were wide, and apprehensive. More than apprehensive. She hadn't seen him this afraid before, at least not in reality.

He looked at the scans, then back at the crack. "What are you doing? You should have closed." He took a few careful steps towards it. "According to the scans, you're not really here. But you are here. You both exist and don't exist. So why are you here? And why now?"

Molly held her breath as she watched him inch closer. She wanted to tell him to stay back, that they didn't know if it was safe or if he might get sucked in or if it was just an echo of the crack or if it was the Time Lords trying to get his name and return again, or to take away his new regeneration cycle, or, or, or…but she knew better than to try to hold him back from a mystery. Especially one so personal.

The Doctor stepped close to it, and leaned down to look into the crack. She couldn't see his reaction from there, even after taking a step backwards to get a better angle. But she saw the determination on his face when he took a few quick steps backward and held the sonic out. The high-pitched sound it practically screamed hurt her ears, rising in pitch every few seconds. She thought she could see beads of sweat forming on his brow.

At last, the crack widened an inch, and the Doctor lowered the screwdriver. He moved forward and looked inside again.

"Do you see anything?" It wouldn't be ideal to break his concentration, she knew, but she had to know.

He leaned in closer to the crack. "I don't know. It's just sort of…taupe with dots of color. Maybe stars? Colored stars against a fawn-colored sky? I can't see…" he leaned back and tried the sonic again. The crack widened another fraction, but then snapped shut and disappeared so suddenly the Doctor leapt back as she jumped in surprise. He immediately started circling the area with a sonic, rushing around to scan the entire lower area. He focused in on where the crack had been, and then waved his hand around as though he might catch a thread of it like catching a bit of spiderweb. Then he turned and rushed back up the stairs, brushing by her as he did. She turned and followed him up, to find him already at the TARDIS console, plugging the sonic into something.

"Do you have any idea what it was doing back here?" she asked as she approached. "Any theories at all?"

"Oh, hundreds," he replied, as he started examining the scans he'd made on the monitor. "Not one of which make any sense."

She watched the scans, and then watched him watching the scans, knowing that she wouldn't be able to read any of it, but might possibly be able to read a reaction on his face. An expression from him would tell her more than the numbers on the screen.

After a few minutes, he looked at her out of the side of his eye, then back to the screen, then back to her. "Stop staring at me like that."

"Okay," she replied, and turned to look over at the TARDIS doors. "Not sure what else I'm supposed to be doing right now, though. Is there anything I can fix?"

"There's no part of the TARDIS you could hope to be able to fix on your own," he replied, and when she turned to hit him, he was already wincing in anticipation. She decided to lower her hand instead. "I just need a few minutes to look at this. I don't think I'll find anything, but there must be a reason it appeared here. There must be."

"It's freaking me out, too," she admitted. She glanced down at herself, at the dust and frizz and something like oil that was more silver than black that she'd managed to get on her dress while helping him. "I'll just go change really quick."

The Doctor nodded distractedly, and she turned and headed out of the control room and back to her own. Upon opening the door, she found the room filled with laundry hampers, all across the floor and leaning against the dresser and piled up on the bed.

"Hmm." Molly looked around the room, and stepped inside, having to immediately sidestep a hamper in order to do so. "This is because I keep leaving clothes on the bathroom floor, isn't it?"

She didn't really need an answer. She fought her way to the dresser and changed into high-waisted denim shorts and a blue tank top and her leather jacket, and, in retribution, found a small space of available floor to drop the dress. She stuck her tongue out at the ceiling, and then started towards the door – and immediately thought better. She was supposed to be trying to make friends with the TARDIS, not end up lost inside her for an eternity. She quickly turned and picked the dress up and dropped it in the nearest hamper, and then looked up again with an apologetic look. "Hi. Sorry. Sorry. Really sorry. I won't do it again," she lied. She knew it would definitely happen again, even though she'd try not to.

Molly returned to the control room as the Doctor was switching off the monitor. "No luck?"

The Doctor picked up the screwdriver and stuck it in his pocket. "None. I'll have to wait and see if it turns up again."

Molly nodded. It was unnerving, knowing that a crack in time and space could show up at any time and do…something, anything really. A crack that had already threatened the universe more than once. But what could she possibly do about it? Nothing. Especially if the Doctor couldn't.

But it was frustrating, for him so much more than her, she was sure. He'd already had to save the universe from that crack twice. The things he'd had to do to stop it…

Molly knew in an instant, though she'd never say so. If she could die to stop it instead of him, she would. He was so much more important than she was. So maybe it wasn't so bad that the TARDIS was taking so long to find her way home.

His face was distant. She wanted to do something to cheer him a bit.

She walked up and tapped him on the shoulder, and he turned away from staring at the blank monitor. "Yes?"

Molly cleared her throat, and prayed to whatever force it was that had brought her there she'd get it right this time, and made one last attempt at 'good morning'.

He smiled, and pulled her into a side hug. The twinkle in his eye made her feel that, this time, she really had gotten it right. "Good morning to you, too, Molly."